Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net
Fighting tooth and nail in the 2017 PBA D-League Aspirants’ Cup Finals, Jackson Corpuz could hold his head high knowing that he and his teammates gave nothing but their best.
“We gave it our all. Maybe it just wasn’t for us. We all did our part, but we just fell short,” he said.
Racal couldn’t sustain its hot start and squandered a 13-point second quarter lead to a furious second half surge from Cignal-San Beda, falling 81-78 in Game 3 on Thursday.
“We weren’t able to contain them. We also couldn’t sustain what we did in the first half and we got a bit complacent. Until the end, we fell short,” Corpuz said.
Still, there should be no shame for the undersized big man as he laid it all on the line, firing 24 points and nine rebounds in the do-or-die tiff. He also averaged 19.7 points and 9.3 rebounds in the series, which was the Tile Masters’ first D-League Finals appearance.
The 6-foot-4 big man shared that he truly had a great time in this run with this Racal crew.
“We’re still happy. We made it to the Finals, believed in ourselves, and trusted the system of coach Jerry (Codiñera). We’re all brothers here,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that we didn’t win, but we’re not blaming anyone. We were here, but we just fell short.”
Corpuz’ masterful showing this conference didn’t go unnoticed as Mahindra plucked him from the free agent pool late Thursday night, giving the undrafted slotman a chance to live his PBA dream.